Peter F. Drucker

Jim Gilbert has had a storied career in direct and digital marketing resulting in a burning desire to tell stories that educate, inform, and inspire marketers to new heights of success. 

After years of marketing consulting, Jim decided it was time to “put his money where his mouth was" and build his own e-commerce company, Premo Natural Products, with its flagship product, Premo Guard Bed Bug & Mite Sprays. Premo in its second year is poised to eclipse 100 percent growth. 

Jim has been writing for Target Marketing Group since 2006, first on the pages of Catalog Success Magazine, then as the first blogger for its online division. Jim continues to write for Total Retail.

Along the way, Jim has led the Florida Direct Marketing Association as their Marketing Chair and then three-term President, been an Adjunct Professor of Direct and Digital marketing for Miami International University, and created a lecture series, “The 9 Immutable Laws of Social Media Marketing,” which he has presented across the country at conferences and universities.

In the first part of this series on tips for catalogers looking for useful ways to bolster their housefiles with prospect names, this week I provide a background on the value of customer acquisition in the catalog industry.
Of course most everyone knows that customers are the lifeblood of any direct marketing company. Everything catalog marketers do revolves around acquiring and retaining customers — and doing so at a profitable level.
Between recent printing and paper increases, the undeserved beating the U.S. Postal Service handed catalog mailers last year, and fierce competition (where the Internet comes into play heavily), the job of a

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